I was thinking about how much of a marketing genius George Lucas truly is. The man made three iconic films, only one of which that he himself directed. He managed to finance Empire and Jedi with the profits off of Star Wars by merchandising the films with a two fold approach. One was to use the products as a means to promote the films themselves and the other to meet the demands of the fans desire to own a piece of the film and it was a perpetual cycle that funded his wildest dreams.
He spent the next decade pursuing other creative projects and building companies to further his vision for film technology advancement, all the while riding on the coat tails of his own creation, without directing a film, but producing, writing, creating new film tech, or financing other films in the process and managing to stay afloat without creating a new Star Wars film for another 16 years. Some of his efforts were flops in that time. Radioland Murders, Howard the Duck, Tucker: The Man and his Dream all bombed, but his pioneering companies kept him afloat.
Now keep in mind back in the late 80's early 90's fans were starved for Star Wars content and merchandise which is why older fans like myself who lived during that era refer to it as "the dark times." So even if the EU novels weren't always good, it was still new material with no new films on the horizon. The scarcity alone created fervent demand and George literally capitalized on it to great effect. The world had moved on but the die-hards like me still held the torch during the interim. We spent years debating whether his "Prequel" trilogy would ever come to pass. You'd hear rumors about it and read vague references in sci-fi magazines from industry insiders who would share some anecdote about Lucas's supposed plans. Star Wars was pretty much in a drought. The Kenner line ended in 1985 and it wouldn't be until a decade later that Hasbro would make a new line of figures, which was a huge deal at the time. He knew how to meter out content and merchandise just right.
Compare that to Lucasfilm now with their deluge of material. In the span of 6 years Lucasfilm has released 5 feature films, 3 of which saw the continuation with the original cast, two stand alone films, two seasons of a hit TV show, several cartoons, dozens of novels, comics, merchandise, and now The High Republic campaign. The High Republic is coming off the heels of the conclusion of the saga films, where Shadows of the Empire came out when no new films were officially announced and barely any other content was there to support the demand. Seeing Lucasfilm now making the comparison between both campaigns of "everything but the movie" neglects the context of the time in which each campaign was released. Then forthcoming we have 10 new original shows and movies in the near future. That's a MASSIVE amount of content in such a short time.
I get that it's a different era we live in and that they have a different approach but it's such a wildly different one and it could be that not every project announced will take off. On the bright side, some may go further than any of us anticipate. We'll have to wait and see. I wonder if the sheer volume of content forthcoming will be as well received just due to the amount of it. Part of the success of the EU wasn't because all the content was good but because we were so starved for new stories we were open to giving it a chance. That's a very different time than what we're experiencing now. As a consumer having lots of options is good, but it could backfire because we are being spoiled.
Lucasfilm as a company has currently produced more Star Wars film and television content in 6 years than George Lucas himself created over the course of his entire career.
Let that sink in for a second.
He spent the next decade pursuing other creative projects and building companies to further his vision for film technology advancement, all the while riding on the coat tails of his own creation, without directing a film, but producing, writing, creating new film tech, or financing other films in the process and managing to stay afloat without creating a new Star Wars film for another 16 years. Some of his efforts were flops in that time. Radioland Murders, Howard the Duck, Tucker: The Man and his Dream all bombed, but his pioneering companies kept him afloat.
Now keep in mind back in the late 80's early 90's fans were starved for Star Wars content and merchandise which is why older fans like myself who lived during that era refer to it as "the dark times." So even if the EU novels weren't always good, it was still new material with no new films on the horizon. The scarcity alone created fervent demand and George literally capitalized on it to great effect. The world had moved on but the die-hards like me still held the torch during the interim. We spent years debating whether his "Prequel" trilogy would ever come to pass. You'd hear rumors about it and read vague references in sci-fi magazines from industry insiders who would share some anecdote about Lucas's supposed plans. Star Wars was pretty much in a drought. The Kenner line ended in 1985 and it wouldn't be until a decade later that Hasbro would make a new line of figures, which was a huge deal at the time. He knew how to meter out content and merchandise just right.
Compare that to Lucasfilm now with their deluge of material. In the span of 6 years Lucasfilm has released 5 feature films, 3 of which saw the continuation with the original cast, two stand alone films, two seasons of a hit TV show, several cartoons, dozens of novels, comics, merchandise, and now The High Republic campaign. The High Republic is coming off the heels of the conclusion of the saga films, where Shadows of the Empire came out when no new films were officially announced and barely any other content was there to support the demand. Seeing Lucasfilm now making the comparison between both campaigns of "everything but the movie" neglects the context of the time in which each campaign was released. Then forthcoming we have 10 new original shows and movies in the near future. That's a MASSIVE amount of content in such a short time.
I get that it's a different era we live in and that they have a different approach but it's such a wildly different one and it could be that not every project announced will take off. On the bright side, some may go further than any of us anticipate. We'll have to wait and see. I wonder if the sheer volume of content forthcoming will be as well received just due to the amount of it. Part of the success of the EU wasn't because all the content was good but because we were so starved for new stories we were open to giving it a chance. That's a very different time than what we're experiencing now. As a consumer having lots of options is good, but it could backfire because we are being spoiled.
Lucasfilm as a company has currently produced more Star Wars film and television content in 6 years than George Lucas himself created over the course of his entire career.
Let that sink in for a second.
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